Administration forums. These are mostly old posts that are no longer relevant. It also contains numerous files that were not located in the proper forums by the original authors. As such, it is a smattering of just about everything. This is a Read Only section. No new posts or replies are permitted.

Announcing "ProtonBoron.com", the open Polywell fusion consortium - a new fusion venture and a new way to seek funding for fusion - through the promotion of fusion via the sale of KWH credits.

SOME QUICK DETAILS -- much more on the website

1.) Our website is: http://protonboron.com We have group forums, a stack-exchange-like Q and A system, a blog/journal, budgets, job listings, and details of the structure and organization.

2.) Founders: Tyler Jordan, M. Simon, & Clyde Phillips jr.

3.) We are bootstrapping everything! We have next to nothing in seed capital, so we are using our skills, persistence, and determination to push forward.

4.) KWH-Credits system: Credits will be sold for US$0.005 with a minimum purchase of 1000KWH (US$5.00). This is an order of magnitude less than global-average KWH rates. This ultra-low rate represents the risk inherent in the undertaking - high risk, high reward. You may purchase KWH-credits now! http://protonboron.com/main/fundraising/#buy-energy

5.) Bonus registration credits:
To facilitate the jump-starting of ProtonBoron.com & to gain your support for this immense undertaking, we are offering 2000 FREE KWH credits (2MWH's of power!) to users of both talk-polywell.org and fusor.net who joined on or before the date of the posting of this offer in exchange for your registration on the website.
Note that you must sign-up to our website using the same email address you are using on talk-polywell.org and/or fusor.net AND you need to email: membership@protonboron.com to let us know that you have registered and want the registration bonus.
Your email address will be compared with email addresses listed on the forums and the date of your joining the forum will be compared with the date of this post. Upon verification, you will receive 2000 KWH credits into your account on the ProtonBoron website.

6.) Ways to EARN KWH credits:
You will earn minor amounts of free credits just by signing into the website on a regular basis and reading and commenting on posts. However to earn large amounts of credit you may write posts and share your affiliate link around the web, located here (must be registered): http://protonboron.com/main/fundraising/#wallet

7.) Legal organizations - it is proposed that:
a. We create two initial legal entities; a foundation/trust that will sell KWH-credits and donate raised funds; and a 501c3 not-for-profit that will accept donations and perform the research. This keeps the organizational tasks focused & more transparent, and this gives better accountability.
b. We form the "ProtonBoron Fusion Foundation" (PBFF) a democratically controlled foundation/trust to both raise funds and oversee the management of all funds provided by supporters. The voting members of this foundation are it's supporters - those who own more than 1000 KWH credits.
c. We form the “Open Polywell Research Institute” (OPRI) a separate 501c3 not-for-profit to manage the research and accept donations & grants. This organization will be managed by it's lead-engineers/researchers.

8.) Community payback:
Upon the successful development of a commercially viable net-positive energy fusion prototype, a third for-profit company will be organized by the foundation. All members of the foundation and the 501c3 may then choose to invest either directly, or by converting their KHW credits into shares (as an alternative to taking a payout for their support).
Upon profitability of the for-profit company, as part of it's contract with the foundation for it's support, all net-profit excepting a negotiated allowance for some net-profit to be re-invested, will be diverted to paying off it's debt to supporters still holding KWH credits.
This method of fundraising is akin to kickstarter(tm), but has several advantages; it is open-ended in that we can continue to raise funds over a number of years, contributors are also voting members, and allows conversion into shares in the future.

LEGAL NOTICE:

1.) ProtonBoron is only giving away virtual-KWH (KiloWatt Hours) of energy not actual (real) KWH of energy.
2.) All virtual-KWH’s are maintained (stored on our servers) as a potential credit that shall only be redeemed for actual-KWH upon our successful development of a commercially profitable fusion reactor production facility (hereafter “our mission”).
3.) In the best case scenario, our mission will likely take over ten years.
4.) If ProtonBoron fails and we cannot accomplish our mission, we shall not redeem the virtual-KWH for real KWH and you will gain nothing in return for your virtual-KWH.
5.) By taking part in ProtonBoron’s give-away of virtual-KWH’s you agree to hold ProtonBoron harmless if we fail to accomplish our mission and hence are unable to redeem any and all virtual-KWH for real KWH.

Whoa really! I don't have a mac, so testing that is hard. However a big thank you for letting me know.

The video's are standard ones from youtube on the polywell concept, but I am planning to get our own video made in the next couple of months.

cheers,

Tyler

EDIT: aha - so I created that bug over the weekend, by trying to get rid of the sidebar for non-mobile users - I never would have suspected that kind of behaviour from what I did. Thanks again for the feedback, it will hopefully be working for you now.

4.) KWH-Credits system: Credits will be sold for US$0.005 with a minimum purchase of 1000KWH (US$5.00). This is an order of magnitude less than global-average KWH rates. This ultra-low rate represents the risk inherent in the undertaking - high risk, high reward. You may purchase KWH-credits now! http://protonboron.com/main/fundraising/#buy-energy

Sorry if I'm being dense, but what exactly are you offering here?

If I buy 'KWH Credits' now, will you be redeeming them at some point in the future when your Polywell device produces a net energy gain? That's not exactly clear from what I'm reading.

I appreciate the creativity behind such an initiative, but it sounds a tad dicey to me and I'm not sure I want Fusor.net connected directly or implicitly. We have avoided any direct fund-raising-for-research from this site, and I'm not sure I want to start now, not this way.

I think that needs to be said. Others are welcome to differ.

--PS

Paul Schatzkin, aka "The Perfesser" – Founder and Host of Fusor.net
Author of The Boy Who Invented Television - http://farnovision.com/book.html
"Fusion is not 20 years in the future; it is 50 years in the past and we missed it."

When I first saw this post, I tried to be open minded about it and let it sink in. Unfortunately, knowing the technical details behind what is being proposed especially with Polywell, it is more propagation, pie in the sky information and false paths.

It is like asking people to contribute for a ride to the Andromeda galaxy. It just isn't going to happen with any amount of money that you throw at it. It is not technically feasible using existing technology or any extension thereof.

4.) KWH-Credits system: Credits will be sold for US$0.005 with a minimum purchase of 1000KWH (US$5.00). This is an order of magnitude less than global-average KWH rates. This ultra-low rate represents the risk inherent in the undertaking - high risk, high reward. You may purchase KWH-credits now! http://protonboron.com/main/fundraising/#buy-energy

Sorry if I'm being dense, but what exactly are you offering here?

If I buy 'KWH Credits' now, will you be redeeming them at some point in the future when your Polywell device produces a net energy gain? That's not exactly clear from what I'm reading.

From the link to purchase:

When ProtonBoron successfully achieves it’s mission – the development of a commercially profitable fusion reactor production facility (successful completion of stage three of our plan), we will launch a repayment program to begin honoring our obligation to the ProtonBoron community of fusion supporters. This program may involve us sending you a payment for the value in KWH’s you purchased relative to a globally averaged price per KWH of electricity. Repayment will occur in the order in which funds were received from supporters and will be contingent on the profits of ProtonBoron – meaning repayment of ProtonBoron’s debt will not happen simultaneously, but over a period of time. This period of time may take several years. However, repayment of this debt/obligation to supporters will precede any net-profit to founders or future investors.

We are not associated with Fusor.net. M.Simon is one of our founders and he is the top poster over at talk-polywell.org

The money is currently going to M.Simon. Once we have enough we will form the legal foundation and from that point on the money will go directly to the foundation, which is owned and controlled by all the donor/members.

Anyone who holds more than 1000 KWH credits is automatically considered a member of the ProtonBoron Fusion Foundation, however member participation, while encouraged, is entirely optional.

Any member of the Foundation may nominate (including self-nominate) members for the board. If there are more than nine nominee’s for the Foundation board, then an electronic election will be held via email to select nine members. A minimum of three members is required.

The executive committee of the board will be elected by the board at their first annual general meeting (AGM).

We understand that this is a complicated arrangement for some, however we have looked at the problem of fundraising from many angles and this is the only means that didn't require large amounts of up-front capital which we don't have.

Given the strong experimental progress of polywell fusion technology over the past two decades of research & development, commercial fusion is technically just around the corner, however only a small effort is currently being made to leap the final hurdles. As such it seems a travesty for us to sit and wait when others have worked hard, and achieved so much, to get us to this point.

We have put a lot of work and thought into how to make this happen. I beg you not to jump to any conclusions, please read through the site.

Frank Sanns wrote:When I first saw this post, I tried to be open minded about it and let it sink in. Unfortunately, knowing the technical details behind what is being proposed especially with Polywell, it is more propagation, pie in the sky information and false paths.

It is like asking people to contribute for a ride to the Andromeda galaxy. It just isn't going to happen with any amount of money that you throw at it. It is not technically feasible using existing technology or any extension thereof.

I respect your individual right to hold whatever view that your like, but respectfully, you must be aware that people said the same thing about many technologies that we have at our fingertips today. I have spoken with many engineers and physicists on the matter and it is believed by many that the polywell concept is the closet of any to achieving net-energy.

Frank Sanns wrote:When I first saw this post, I tried to be open minded about it and let it sink in. Unfortunately, knowing the technical details behind what is being proposed especially with Polywell, it is more propagation, pie in the sky information and false paths.

It is like asking people to contribute for a ride to the Andromeda galaxy. It just isn't going to happen with any amount of money that you throw at it. It is not technically feasible using existing technology or any extension thereof.

I respect your individual right to hold whatever view that your like, but respectfully, you must be aware that people said the same thing about many technologies that we have at our fingertips today. I have spoken with many engineers and physicists on the matter and it is believed by many that the polywell concept is the closet of any to achieving net-energy.

It is not an opinion. It is a technical assessment. The polywell concept is not an effective approach. It has never been demonstrated to produce fusion at anywhere near the rate of a simple fusor. Then you want to do Boron Protium fusion which in itself has huge technical problems as well as efficiency problems.

The easiest route to fusion is via the D-T reaction which has a peak cross section around 50 keV. This is the fuel of choice for fusion. Boron-Proton fusion don't have a reasonable fusion cross section until a peak near 500 keV! That is ten times the energy input for around the same output as at D-T fusion. So what is the point?

The big draw with you polywell people is fusion without neutrons. What is the point to that since neutrons can easily be captured and turned into heat and used for power production.

Again, I ask, what are the true technical merits to your proposals? They are technically not feasible routes to fusion. If you love the polywell approach so much, make it work with D-T and you will have something worthwhile. Anything beyond achievable milestones smells of snake oil or at the least naiveté. That last sentence is now my opinion.

Your technical assessment is limited by your experiences, understanding and biases - as is the case with anyone, which makes such an opinion. FYI, pB11 has a potentially viable cross-section at 150KeV and that is our target. Also, we are not stuck if pB11 doesn't work. We are setting the bar high, so we can go lower if pB11 doesn't pan out. We are pragmatists, not dreamers.

It is also important to keep in mind that overall net-energy involves more than the input into the reactor versus the output of the reactor - it must also consider the inefficiencies of the means of converting the energy into usable electrical output. pB11 offers us the possibility of direct conversion giving us a much higher level of efficiency - meaning we don't need to produce as much to reach overall net-energy.

We must also consider the costs of operation and the fuel. Operational costs for a d-T machine are going to be much higher due to the necessity of replacing magnets on a frequent basis. Fuel cost for Tritium is extremely expensive as you know and breeding Tritium is highly problematic.

Overall, our choice of pB11 is a solid pragmatic approach that leaves us the option to choose d-T later if required.